Practical Black-Box Attacks against Machine, March 19, 2017. The images in the top row are altered to disrupt the neural network leading to the misinterpretation on the bottom row. The alterations are not visible to the human eye.

Only when journalists shame us by finding ways to trick our systems into advertising to neo-Nazis do we pay attention. Yet, far more maliciously intended actors are starting to play the long game in messing with our data. Why aren’t we trying to get ahead of this?

Europe needs a more profound reform of the EU copyright regime than the one that the European Commission has announced. To illustrate this, we have identified nine copyfails – crucial failures of the current EU system.

the private maritime security industry has been a victim of its own success. Anti-piracy measures have been so effective that now smaller security firms are going out of business. Today (April 18, 2016) the Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI), one of the main bodies that set standards for guard providers, announced its voluntary liquidation.In a press release announcing the liquidation, SAMI said that its fee-paying membership had fallen as the industry has “consolidated,” rendering the organization financially unsustainable.

(...) Guys with guns is one measure the shipping community has used, but not the only one. International navies posted warships in the area. Cargo vessels increased their speeds, travelled in convoy, and installed onboard deterrents such as barbed wire and water cannons.Oceans Beyond Piracy, a non-governmental organization that studies global piracy, said that the cost of global piracy (pdf) in 2011 was between $6.6 and $6.9 billion, with a large portion coming from the million-dollar ransoms demanded off East Africa’s coast by pirates for the return of captured ships and the people aboard. The last such successful hijack for ransom was in May 2012. In 2012, piracy off Somalia alone had an economic cost of up to $6.1 billion, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy. By 2014, that figure had fallen to $2.2 billion.

The larger issue here is this – the armed ex-soldiers can not and should not be tried as merchant seafarers. They should be tried under a separate category. Of enemy combatants working in Indian territory without the protection of a legitimate uniform and under another country’s flag. Under the rules of war against India.

Deep Web gives the inside story of one of the the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century — the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the convicted 30-year-old entrepreneur accused to be ’Dread Pirate Roberts,’ creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. The film explores how the brightest minds and thought leaders behind the Deep Web are now caught in the crosshairs of the battle for control of a future inextricably linked to technology, with our digital rights hanging in the balance.

In addition to being the only film with exclusive access to the Ulbricht family, Deep Web features the core architects of the Deep Web; anarchistic cryptographers who developed the Deep Web’s tools for the military in the early 1990s; the dissident journalists and whistleblowers who immediately sought refuge in this seemingly secure environment; and the figures behind the rise of Silk Road, which combined the security of the Deep Web with the anonymity of cryptocurrency.

The case of the Seaman Guard Ohio, a ship impounded by India for the past three years along with its crew, is one of high drama. For the men who were on board when the ship was seized, there’s been nothing exciting about the months since October 2013, and so far, no Hollywood ending. In a decision that shocked many—like the families waiting at home—the 35 men were sentenced Jan. 12 to more time in prison by an Indian court.

Sri Lanka has banned private floating armouries, but Private Maritime Security Companies (PMSCs) will be allowed to function (...) following a major scandal over the functioning of the Lanka-based PMSC, Avant Garde Maritime Security Services Ltd (AGMSL).

(...) the controversial company, which ironically was a Joint Venture (JV) with the Defence Ministry’s security firm Rakna Arakshaka Lanka Ltd (RALL). The JV, entered into in 2012, has since been cancelled. (...)

From 2009 to 2012, the Navy was the repository of weapons that were lent to the PMSCs for anti-piracy operations in the Red Sea area. After the setting up of the RALL-AGMSL JV, which acquired two floating armouries, the Navy lost revenue to the tune of LKR 1.2 billion (US$ 8.4 million), according to a report.

Several illegalities in the operation of the RALL-AGMSL JV were discovered after the exit of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government in January this year. The AGMSL’s floating armouries had sailed in the high seas with weapons that were not authorised, police and the Navy alleged.

In October, one of its floating armouries had sailed into Indian waters off Minicoy, and also entered Maldivian waters, thus exposing itself to punitive action by the Indian and Maldivian navies.

Permission to enter Galle port was taken from the Defence Ministry, but only at the end of the journey. When the vessel entered the port, it had 861 weapons on board, but authorisation had been given for only three specified weapons and three Sea Marshals. The vessel’s crew had kept its route a secret and also lied about their captain’s identity. Besides, there are money laundering and corruption cases against the AGMSL, which are being investigated.

the President of the International Tribunal on Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Vladimir Golitsyn asked the two countries to submit the initial report in the entire incident by 24 September.

The judge said pending a decision by the arbitral tribunal, “Italy and India shall both suspend all court proceedings and shall refrain from initiating new ones which might aggravate or extend the dispute submitted to the...arbitral tribunal or might jeopardise or prejudice the carrying out of any decision which the arbitral tribunal may render.”

The oceans, plied by more ships than ever before, are also more armed and dangerous than any time since World War II, naval historians say. Thousands of seamen every year are victims of violence, with hundreds killed, according to maritime security officials, insurers and naval researchers. Last year in three regions alone — the western Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa — more than 5,200 seafarers were attacked by pirates and robbers and more than 500 were taken hostage, a database built by The New York Times shows.

Many merchant vessels hired private security starting in 2008 as pirates began operating across larger expanses of the ocean, outstripping governments’ policing capacities. Guns and guards at sea are now so ubiquitous that a niche industry of floating armories has emerged. The vessels — part storage depot, part bunkhouse — are positioned in high-risk areas of international waters and house hundreds of assault rifles, small arms and ammunition. Guards on board wait, sometimes for months in decrepit conditions, for their next deployment.

(...)

Radar advancements and the increased use of so-called fish-aggregating devices — floating objects that attract schools of fish — have heightened tensions as fishermen are more prone to crowd the same spots. “Catches shrink, tempers fray, fighting starts,” Mr. Southwick said. “Murder on these boats is relatively common.”

Discerning threats is difficult. Semiautomatic weapons, formerly a pirates’ telltale sign, are now found on virtually all boats traversing dangerous waters, they said. Smugglers, with no intention of attacking, routinely nestle close to larger merchant ships to hide in their radar shadow and avoid being detected by coastal authorities. Fishing boats also sometimes tuck behind larger ships because they churn up sea-bottom sediment that attracts fish.

While the economic cost of Somali piracy has fallen and considerable progress has been made in deterring pirate operations, the latest attacks on Iranian fishing vessels by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean may be another signal that it is too early to cut back international counter-piracy efforts, according to a new report.

(...) "We still haven’t addressed the root causes of piracy. There are still ungoverned spaces on the coastline. There is still unemployed youth that might be attracted to piracy.” — Jon Huggins

(...) As reported by Foreign Policy, young Somali pirates in Hargeisa and Bosaso are detained in the same prisons as members of the al-Shabab militant group.